FILIAL LOVE.



LOVE for one's parents is a touchstone of a lovely character. It is Heaven-born and Heaven-commanded. If we cherish a proper love for our parents, we shall also love our Heavenly Father. The development of filial love is a brighter jewel than wealth or fame. Not only is it an ornament in this world, but it will make bright our passport to the skies.

Children, please read and remember the following touching incidents related by T. L, Cuyler and learn that to be truly great and noble, we must love our parents, and in doing this we love God also.

There is a touching story of the famous Dr. Samuel Johnson, which has had an influence on many a boy who has heard it. 

Samuel's father, Michael Johnson, was a poor bookseller in Litchfield, England. On market day he used to carry a package of books to the village of Uttoxeter, and sell them from a stall in the market-place. 

One day the bookseller was sick, and asked his son to go and sell the books in his place. 

Samuel, from a silly pride, refused to obey.

Fifty years afterward, Johnson became the celebrated author, the compiler of the "English Dictionary," and one of the most distinguished scholars in England, but he never forgot his act of unkindness to his poor, hard-toiling father; so when he visited Uttoxeter he determined to show his sorrow and repentance.

He went into the market-place at the time of business, uncovered his head, and stood there for an hour in a pouring rain, on the very spot where the book-stall used to stand.

"This," says he, "was an act of contrition for my disobedience to my kind father."

The spectacle of the great Dr. Johnson standing bareheaded in the storm, to atone for the wrong done by him fifty years before, is a grand and touching one. There is a representation of it (in marble) on the Doctor's monument.

Many a man-in after-life has felt something harder and heavier than a storm of rain beating upon his heart, when he remembered his acts of unkindness to a good father or mother now in the grave.

Dr. John Todd of Pittsfield, the eminent writer, never could forget how, when his old father was very sick, and sent him away for medicine, he (a lad) had been unwilling to go, and made up a lie, that the druggist had no such medicine.

When little Johnny came in, the old man was just dying, and said to him, "My boy, your father suffers great pain for want of that medicine."

Johnny started in great distress for the medicine, but it was too late. On his   return the father was almost gone. He could only say to the weeping boy, "Love God, and always speak the truth, for the eye of God is always upon you. Now kiss me once more, and farewell."

Through all his after-life, Dr. Todd often had a heart-ache over that act of falsehood and disobedience to his dying father. It takes more than a shower of rain to wash away the memory of such sins. Dr. Todd repented of that sin a thousand times.

The words, "Honor thy father and thy mother," mean four things, always do what they bid you; always tell them the truth; always treat them lovingly; and take care of them when they are sick or grown old. I never yet knew a boy that trampled on the wishes of his parents who turned out well. God never blesses a willfully disobedient son.

When Washington was sixteen years old he determined to leave home and be a mid-shipman in the colonial navy. After he had sent off his trunk he went to bid his mother good-by. She wept so bitterly because he was going away that he said to his Negro servant, "Bring back my trunk; I am not going to make my mother suffer so by my leaving her. "He remained at home to please his mother. 

This decision led to his becoming a surveyor, and afterward a soldier. His whole glorious career in life turned on this one simple act of trying to make his mother happy. 

And happy, too, will be the child who never has occasion to shed bitter tears for any act of unkindness to his parents. Let us not forget that God has said, "Honor thy father and thy mother."




L. McCoy.



OF the future we know nothing, of the past little, of the present less; the mirror is too close to our eyes, and our own breath dims it. 




Walter Savage Landor